The Edge of Desire by Stephanie Laurens
“To that”—Montague shuffled his notes—“and to toting up Randall’s present considerable wealth—which will necessarily involve a complete analysis of the Orient Trading Company’s worth.” Looking up, he smiled, then rose as Letitia did. He bowed to them both. “You may leave all that to me.”
They did. Returning to South Audley Street, they alighted before Randall’s steps. Barton stupidly let Letitia get a glimpse of him. Even across the width of the street, her contemptuous dagger-eyed glance scorched.
Christian drew her up the steps and through the door.
Ire lit her eyes. “That man!” Reaching up, she unpinned her veil. “Don’t you know anyone at Bow Street?”
Taking her arm, Christian steered her toward the dining parlor; Mellon had informed them that Hermione and Agnes were already at the luncheon table. “I probably could get Barton removed, but they’d only put someone else on the case.” He met Letitia’s eyes. “Much as he irritates you, he might well be a case of better the devil you know.”
She humphed, and let him lead her to the dining table and seat her at its end.
Hermione and Agnes were eager to hear of developments. While the footmen and Mellon were in the room, they had to be circumspect in what they said, but when the fruit was set before them, Letitia dismissed the staff and had Mellon close the door.
Lowering her voice, she told Hermione and her aunt that Justin was in town and safe with friends.
“Well that’s a relief.” Agnes reached for a fig.
“Yes, but,” Hermione said, “he can’t be free again until we catch the murderer.”
“Indeed.” Letitia was concentrating on the fig she was peeling, yet Christian registered her tone, sensed the same thread of something more deadening in Hermione, too.
The Vaux tended not to deal well with “nothing happening.”
He cast about for something to distract them. Remembered…“We haven’t yet pursued the question of how the man Hermione heard talking with Randall that night—presumably the murderer—got into and out of the house.”
A minor issue, but it would serve.
Busy neatly consuming her fig, Letitia slanted a glance his way. “You were going to question Mellon again.”
“So I was. No time like the present.” Swinging his legs from beneath the table, Christian rose and crossed to the bellpull.
When Mellon answered the summons, Christian, seated again, arched a brow at Letitia.
She waved to him to proceed. To Mellon, she said, “Please answer his lordship’s questions.”
Christian studied Mellon, standing between Letitia and Agnes on the other side of the table, for several seconds, before saying, “Mellon, think back to the night your master was murdered. Who, throughout all that evening, did you admit to this house?”
Mellon frowned, but answered readily enough. “Other than Lady Randall when she returned from her dinner, and the master when he came home at six o’clock, the only person I opened the door to was Lord Vaux, my lord.”
Christian watched Mellon closely. “You admitted no other person, at no other time during that evening and night, whether through the front door or any other door. Is that correct?”
Mellon fixed his gaze above Christian’s head. “Yes, my lord.”
Christian leaned forward. “Tell me, Mellon, in your opinion is it possible that someone entered the house, or left the house, through the front door without your knowledge?”
Mellon opened his mouth, but then shut it. Christian was pleased to see he took time to think before answering. Nevertheless…“I can’t say absolutely not, my lord—there were a few minutes between when I left Lord Vaux in the library and reached my room—but that was the only time anyone could have come in or out through the front door, or else I would have known, given as my room is directly above it.”
Christian nodded. “And if they’d come in then, when did they leave, and if they left then, then when did they arrive—quite.” He paused, then asked, “Is there any other door, or French door—any other way into the house other than through the servants’ hall?”
“No, my lord. None at all.”
Christian remembered. “There’s a lane down the side. No entry from there?”
“Not to the front of the house, my lord. There’s a gate at the side of the backyard, and as you will have seen, there’s only a very narrow area behind the front railings. The drawing room and front parlor windows look onto that, but they aren’t doors, and they’re locked anyway.”
Christian waved the windows aside. “There’s clearly no other way anyone else could have got into the house.” He caught Hermione’s eye as she opened her mouth—breathed easier when she shut it. Looking at Mellon, he smiled. “Thank you, Mellon. You may go.”
Mellon bowed, then cast a glance at Letitia. She waved a dismissal and he went.
Hermione managed to contain herself until the door shut. She even managed to keep her voice down. “But there was someone else there—I heard them.” She glanced at Letitia. “I’m not making it up.”
“We know you’re not.” Letitia looked at Christian. “What now?”
Carefully, he took Hermione step by step through her story again. She was unshakable in her certainty that she’d heard Randall speaking with some other man. “And it definitely wasn’t Justin. I wouldn’t mistake his voice—it’s deep, like yours.”
Christian raised his brows. “And the other man’s wasn’t?”
Hermione shook her head. “His was…lighter. Not light, but a medium man’s voice. Nothing one would notice either way.”
She remembered things far too clearly, in too much detail, for Christian to doubt her.
He sat back. “Very well. So what we’re faced with is this. On that night some man, a friend of Randall’s, gained entry into the house, how we don’t know, spoke with Randall, and then hit him with the poker, killing him. How did that man get into and out of the house?”
They all sat back and thought.
“Not the house,” Letitia eventually said. She caught Christian’s eye. “Just the study—we don’t know that he went anywhere else in the house. We have no reason to suppose he did.”
Christian nodded. “Good point. So how did he get into the study?”
Letitia sat forward, leaning her elbows on the table. “If this was Nunchance, I’d say he’d got in through the secret passage. But this is a London town house—no secret ways.”
Christian stared at her, at her face, for a long moment, then looked up—at the cornices—ornate—and the heavy rough plaster of the ceiling. Recalled similar plasterwork in the library and front parlor, and the wood half paneling that ran through most of the house…. “But this is an old house.” Swinging around, he stood and stalked to the window to get a better sense of the thickness of the walls. Thick. Head rising, he pictured the front facade—of this house, and the one that abutted it, and the one beyond that.
He turned back to the table, caught Letitia’s gaze. “This isn’t a new London town house. It’s a very old house that’s been divided into three. It is of the vintage where secret passages and entrances were de rigueur.”
Something else struck him. “Why did Randall buy this house—this particular house? Did he ever mention it?”
She thought, shook her head.
“He was a secretive man—if we’ve learned anything about him, it’s that. He liked to hide things.” He was already moving toward the door.
Behind him, chairs scraped. His hand on the doorknob, he turned back to see all three ladies on their feet.
Letitia’s eyes were wide. “You think there’s a secret passage leading to the study?”
He smiled intently. “I wouldn’t be the least surprised.”
They trooped into the study and started their search. Agnes, unable to easily bend or stretch, excused herself and retired, leaving the three of them tapping panels and poking at the ornately carved mantelpiece and the thick, lushly carved picture rail.
A second later the door opened to reveal Mellon. He announced, “A Mr. Dalziel has called, my lady. I’ve shown him into the drawing room.”
Letitia straightened. “Please show him in here, Mellon.”
Mellon looked disapproving, but retreated, restricting himself to a glance at the spot where his master’s body had lain.
Two heartbeats later, Dalziel walked in. He turned and rather pointedly shut the door in Mellon’s face.
Holding up one finger to enjoin their silence, Dalziel waited for half a minute, his hand on the doorknob, then he opened the door again.
They couldn’t see past his shoulders, but heard him utter two words. “Leave. Now.”
His tone suggested that whoever was there—presumably Mellon—risked fatal injury if he didn’t immediately comply.
He must have left—at speed—because Dalziel smoothly shut the door and turned back into the room.
It wasn’t good news making Dalziel so edgy; leaving the wall, Letitia moved to the center of the room, stopped and waited for him to join her.
Which he did, halting directly before her.
She was conscious of Christian drawing nearer, stopping by her shoulder. She searched Dalziel’s uninformative face. “What is it? Justin?”
Dalziel answered with a sharp shake of his head. “He’s safely hidden where no one will think, or dare, to look for him.” He held her gaze. “I’ve heard from Hexham.” His voice low, he went on, “There’s only one family called Randall in the area, or was—a farmer who had a decent spread outside the town. He and his wife are both dead, but he was warm enough to spare his only son from the farm when the boy was awarded a governors’ scholarship to Hexham Grammar School. There, the lad did well enough, apparently, but the school lost track of him after he left.”
Letitia held his dark gaze; she knew what he was telling her, but she couldn’t—simply could not—take it in. After a blank moment, she said, “You’re saying…” Then she shook her head, briskly dismissing the impossible. “That couldn’t have been Randall. I couldn’t have been married to a farmer’s son.”
Dalziel’s lips compressed, then he murmured, “George Martin Randall. According to the school and parish records he would have turned thirty-four in April this year.”
She stared, jaw slackening. “Good God!” Her voice was weak; she literally felt the blood drain from her face.
“Sit down.” Christian grasped her arm and eased her back and down into the chair he’d set behind her.
Once she was seated, still stunned and shocked, he glanced at Dalziel. “That explains a few things.”
“Indeed.” Dalziel nodded curtly. “It also poses a host of new questions.”
“But…how could…?” Letitia gestured at nothing in particular, but they knew what she meant.
“Precisely.” Dalziel glanced around the study—at the polished wood, the heavy desk, the books and curios on the shelves, the elegant chairs. “The ‘how coulds’ are endless. How could a farmer’s son have achieved all this? More, although he was only thirty-four, he’d been wealthy enough, for long enough, to have simply become accepted by the ton.”
“Wealthy enough to rescue the Vaux from gargantuan debts,” Letitia said. “And so marry me—and through me become connected with and have the entrée to the highest levels of society.”
Dalziel blinked.
Christian realized he hadn’t known about the debts that had led to Letitia marrying Randall. Letitia, Justin, and their father had kept that secret well.
It was on the tip of Dalziel’s tongue to ask—to confirm and inquire about the forced marriage—but then he glanced at Christian, his look plainly saying, Later?
Christian nodded.
Somewhat to his relief, a frown replaced Letitia’s stunned expression.
“But why?” She looked up at Dalziel, then swiveled to look at him. “Why, why, why? It makes no sense.”
After a moment, Dalziel said, “Yes it does. Just think—a farmer’s son rises to live as one with the highest in the land.” When they looked at him, he continued, “That has to be a dream, a fantasy many farmers, laborers, and the like indulge in. Randall didn’t just fantasize, he made it happen. Found ways to make it happen.”
“I don’t understand.”
They all turned to Hermione. She was leaning against the desk, arms folded, a frown identical to the one on Letitia’s face darkening hers.
“Why would he want to become one of us? Why not just be a very rich farmer?”
Dalziel answered. “Status. It’s something we take for granted, that we rarely if ever think of. We’re born to it—we assume its mantle as our norm. But although we’re barely aware of it, others are. They envy us what we barely notice—all the privileges we enjoy by right of birth.” He paused, then went on, “While there are many who—out of our hearing—rail against our privilege, the truly clever…they try to join us.”
Letitia hauled in a huge breath, let it out with, “In which endeavor Randall succeeded excellently well.”
She was a part of his success.
She looked up, met Christian’s, then Dalziel’s, eyes. “That fits. Very well. It explains a lot of his attitudes that I never understood.”
Dalziel nodded. “Very likely, but the most pertinent point for our investigation is that having succeeded so excellently well, Randall kept his success a secret. A very, indeed amazingly, closely kept secret. Who knew of his background? So far, we’ve found no one. No one even suspected. One might have thought that, having succeeded, he might crow—at least to close friends. But he didn’t have any—something that now makes sense. Yet nothing we’ve uncovered suggests even secret gloating. He might have inwardly preened, but he didn’t celebrate his success.”
“He wasn’t finished.” Letitia met Dalziel’s dark eyes, then looked at Christian. “He was set on taking Nunchance from Justin. And he wanted children.” Her lips curved cynically. “Unfortunately for him, he forgot to specify that as part of our agreement. I believe he thought it simply followed as a natural outcome of my duties in the marriage bed, and strangely—perhaps because he was in fact a farmer’s son—he never realized that I might have some way of preventing that.”
The depth of her aversion for Randall showed in her eyes, then she turned back to Dalziel.
Who had started to pace. “Even so, his secrecy might well have been the reason behind his murder. His continuing plans, which made maintaining that secrecy even more important, only add weight to the thesis.”
Letitia frowned. “I can understand him murdering someone else to preserve his secret, but how could such a secret have killed him?”
Dalziel halted. “I don’t know, but such secrets are always dangerous.” He frowned, then glanced at the paneling, as if only then registering what they’d been doing when he’d entered. “What were you searching for?”
They told him.
He hesitated, clearly weighing what else he had on his plate against the challenge of finding a secret door. It took him all of five seconds to decide. “I’ve got some time—I’ll help.”
Which made four of them, which, as Letitia remarked, was just as well. The study was a cornucopia of carved wood. They divided the room into quarters and settled to their search.
Starting in one corner, she poked and prodded, mindlessly working her way along the paneling’s upper rail; inside, her mind was awash with a litany of exclamations, all escalating versions of “a farmer’s son?” It was, simply, unbelievable—unacceptable. For a lady of her rank and birth…it was more than shocking.
More than scandalous.
If it ever became known she’d stooped so low as to marry a farmer’s son…
Halting, raising her head, she sucked air into s
Farther along the wall, Christian glanced up, caught her gaze.
She looked into his eyes, into the unwavering, unshakable gray, and felt her reeling world slow, steady.
Her catastrophic secret would only be a disaster if it became known.
He arched a brow at her, plainly asking if she was all right.
Drawing in another breath, she nodded, and returned to her examination of the rail.
Later. She would deal with the potential for catastrophe later. At the moment, it was all she could do to get her mind to accept Dalziel’s truth.
Ten minutes later she found a catch hidden in the moldings around one of the windows. Energized, she told the others. They came to look, then, while they all scanned the room, she depressed the catch.
A bookcase in the center of the opposite wall popped free of the stonework.
“My God!” Hermione breathed. “There really is a secret door.”
Christian and Dalziel had already crossed to the bookcase. They didn’t need to expend any huge effort to move it back—it swung open easily, and noiselessly, on well-oiled hinges.
Standing in the opening revealed, Christian, in a voice tinged with awe, said, “It’s not a secret door—it’s a secret room.”
Letitia and Hermione joined the two men, then followed them down the three steps that descended into what truly was an amazing find.
“Trust Randall to have a secret room”—Letitia slowly pivoted, taking in the space—“to store all his secrets in.”
That certainly appeared to be the room’s purpose. In contrast to the study, which was neat and tidy, with no papers on the desk and a pristine white blotter clearly for show rather than use, this room was full of papers—stacked on both sides of the massive but well-worn desk and bulging from pigeonholes behind it—and a blotter that was crossed, recrossed, and rather tattered.
All of the available wall space was covered with shelves housing ledgers, stacks of files, document boxes, and tomes that appeared to be accounts, their spines marked in Randall’s schoolboyish hand with dates and initials. The shelves stretched all the way to the high ceiling; a wooden ladder stood in one corner.